Gone Away
by remarkables
Summary: Wouldn't it be nice? If life was perfect? If there was a world where animals could talk and great castles rose by the sea. A paradise where the good prevails and the evil fall, where forgiveness and warmth ran like water? It sounds nice, it sounds wonderful. But it's only a lie. A perfect, wondrous lie. This is reality, and reality is never so kind.


I'm running out of crayon.

The red stick of clay is shrinking day by day. Pretty soon it'll be hard for me to mark the days on my wall, my only way of keeping time.

The days have blurred, I don't know what season it is anymore. I don't know what year it is. I don't even know when my birthday is. All I know is that everyday I am released from my room to eat lunch in the cafeteria, and that I am escorted back afterwards.

Sometimes she comes to visit; my mother. She never stays long though, and whenever she's here she rarely pays attention to me. She is more concerned with the other two, my siblings. I've tried to track the days she comes, but I always lose count, and she's never on time.

I don't really care. It was her, she was the one who put us here, she was the one who sent us away. When she had finally had enough of our stories of talking beasts and majestic lions and magical worlds pinned to the back of wardrobes. She couldn't stand it- being around us. So, here we are.

We are trapped, trapped in a sea of white paint and lab coats and sloppy food that smells of gravel. We won't ever escape, for there is only one way to leave.

Death.

* * *

Lucy is the strongest out of all of us.

Even after weeks and weeks of shock treatment and pills and a constant daze of pain, she still believed. She believed in that place; that lie we told ourselves was true.

Even after we had given up, she still talked about it. She reminisced of days I can only recall in my dreams. She never gave up on it's beauty.

 _Narnia._

How desperate must I have been? Why did I go along with those silly stories? Why was I so sure they existed? They once brought so much comfort to me, but now all they bring are nightmares. Nightmares of pain and blinding lights, of the same monotone voice telling me it was going to be okay. It was never okay, so why did they say it? Why did they lie?

Or was it I who lied?

Everything is so shattered, so broken. Peter never talks anymore, he only stares. Half moons made of smoke ring his eyes; his pale blue orbs that will never smile. He doesn't speak, I've forgotten the sound of his voice. When we sit together in the cafeteria the only sound is Lucy's chatter, she speaks of things neither of us want to remember. But we still listen.

He no longer says goodbye. He just drifts away, and each time he does I fear he won't come back.

He won't last much longer.

* * *

Why couldn't I be like Susan?

When things got bad, when our mother grew worried, why couldn't I be like her? Why couldn't I say Narnia didn't exist? Why didn't I turn away?

She wasn't there- the day we were taken. She was out at a party, or shopping, or whatever it is that she does when she's not home. We never even got to say goodbye. We were simply shoved in an ambulance one by one, scared and shaking and crying for our mother. Our mother, who stood at the doorway of our house, watching with tears in her eyes as we, her children, were taken away.

I was only twenty. I was in collage, studying to be a lawyer. Peter wanted to be a doctor. Lucy was going to be attending Cambridge in the fall. We were fine. We were okay. So why were we taken?

Taken to a place where the only light is artificial, and the only grass is fake. No birds sing, no river bubbles. There is only emptiness.

There is only silence.

I never see Susan anymore. She never comes to visit. Mum says she sends her love, but does she really? Does she even care about us at all? Why did she forget? Why did we remember?

Why? Why? _Why?_

* * *

Red mars the white walls of my room.

I'm annoying the nurses, I can tell. They always scowl when they come in, disgust twisting their bland faces. I don't care. My blood is on those walls. I bleed everyday I'm here, even if the blood is not from my body.

Peter is looking worse. He won't last another week. He doesn't eat anymore, I think they have to shove food down his throat behind closed doors.

Lucy has gone quiet. They finally did it. They finally broke her. She's a shell, a lifeless doll. She doesn't speak of fawns or centaurs anymore. She just eats and rambles about boring and dull topics. I've stopped listening.

They say she might be released soon. They say she's made a full recovery. They say she can go back to the normal life she had before, now that she no longer believes stupid fairy tales are real.

But what is a normal life? I don't remember.

I'm pretty sure they have given up on Peter and me. They know we're a lost cause. They could take the thoughts out of my brain and the words from my mouth, but there is no fixing that which is too broken to be saved.

Peter has nothing left to believe in, nothing left to say. He just wants to be left alone until the sands of time strip him away one layer after another, until there is nothing left but a memory.

And me? I can't say, I don't know. Life is a haze, a mess that I can't clean up. I just go through the movements. The motions that say to go to bed each night and get up each day. But getting up has become harder. Some days it seems easiest to simply stare at the ceiling. Allowing all thoughts of life or consciousness to slip away, and to stare at the ceiling.

* * *

Peter is dead.

He doesn't come to lunch anymore.

A new patient has come in, one to replace the empty space he left.

When Mum heard, she cried. She cried and hugged Lucy and then she cried some more. Lucy didn't cry, she didn't react. She just stared, those eyes that once held so much life now nothing but cheap marbles. She will be leaving soon, Mum wants her to come home. I doubt I'll go with them. I'm too unstable. Mum, Lucy and Susan will live out the rest of their lives, and I will become nothing more than a shadow of a creature that never existed.

Peter must have given up. He must have finally hit the limit, must have collapsed. I can't blame him. The more I think about it, the more wonderful it sounds. To die and be wrapped in a dark cocoon where nothing ever existed and nothing ever will.

He's finally free. He found his escape, and he took it. Once again, I am envious of Peter.

I want to die too.

* * *

Aslan is a lie.

Just another lie in a sea of fables.

There is no mighty lion to look out for us. There is no God.

And if there is, he has abandoned us. Abandoned us to a fate I would not wish on anyone.

I remember that Aslan saved me, that in our stories of Narnia he gave his life to save mine. It was all a lie, I know that now, but even so I wish he hadn't.

I wish he let me die. I wish he abandoned me on that stone table. At least then my suffering would be over.

But two lies don't make a truth. I couldn't have died on that table all those years ago, because that table never existed.

We were just kids. Kids who were naive enough to think we could fight a war we were too young to understand. Susan was smart to let it go.

Darkness consumes everything now. Peter had the light that made this world bearable, but that light is now gone. Diminished by the ones who would seek to hide it- those greedy, selfish bastards.

I'm waiting. Waiting for the day when it is my turn to leave too. Someone else can have my red room, marked with the days I have spent in this Hell I can't escape. Someone else can eat my food and lie in my bed.

They can wash away those marks. They can take away everything that ever said I existed at all. I don't care.

I just want this to be over.

* * *

Lucy is gone.

Mum came to pick her up yesterday. The nurses packed up all of her stuff and helped her out the door. They liked her, everyone does. Mum was so happy, and Lucy was all smiles and teary laughs. Susan even came too. She held Lucy's hand as they walked to the car, skipping in tiny steps.

Sunlight bounced off her hair, clean and shiny for the first time. Lucy was smiling, smiling a ghost of the grin I used to know. Now it's a dead and empty smile, one made to hide the grimace that forms behind it.

They never once turned around. They never looked over their shoulder to see the boy looking out his window, an abused red crayon in his hand. They never saw the broken man they condemned to this fate. They never saw his tears.

They never saw me.

They never cared.

The days are blurred now, I have to be careful with how much crayon I use. I know once I run out I'll never get another. There are so many marks on the walls now I can't count them. Too many days gone, too much time wasted.

What I wouldn't give for an hour in the sunlight, to feel fresh grass between my toes. I want to run again. To hear the wind in my ears and see the stars over my head. Those are the only things I trust anymore. Each day the sun will rise, each night the stars will appear.

That is truth. The rest is a fable.

* * *

Lucy is dead.

I heard the nurses talking about it. I couldn't help but smile. Even after every shock, every pill, she kept her bravery until the very end. She had enough bravery to hang herself by a rope, enough courage to end the pain she was consumed by.

She was unbroken, even after they had tied her down. She will continue to fly, she will always be that untamed spirit. Even in death.

And yet, as happy as I am that Lucy kept herself, I'm so, so sad.

I am the last surviving sibling. Peter is dead, cold in his grave. Lucy is gone. Susan is not my sister. My sister died many years ago. I am the only one left.

And I'm tired.

So, so tired.

I'm waiting, waiting for my turn. But it's taking so long, and it's getting harder and harder to get up. I don't go down to the cafeteria anymore. There isn't any point. And why should I do something if there isn't any point? I'm pretty sure they will have to force feed me pretty soon, just like they did with Peter.

I don't care. They can do what they want. I'm sick of this constant battle for my escape, I just want an end. There's not a point in living anymore.

And why should I do something if there isn't any point?

* * *

I've run out of crayon.

I can scrape no more red clay onto my walls, I've tried. They won't give me another one. But I suppose that's okay, there is no where else to put it.

I think the days have gotten shorter. The nights have gotten longer. They have started to force feed me, running tubes around my body and into my mouth. I don't care about that either.

It's harder to move, I don't get up most days. I just lay there, thinking of Lucy's stories and Peter's voice and the sound of the sea.

It's the only thing I have left.

* * *

My vision is going, black shades the corners.

Black and white and red. That's all I can see. Silence. That's all I can hear.

I am so jealous of my brother and sister. They're dead, their suffering is over, and now I'm all alone. Alone with my thoughts and my nightmares and my dreams of castles in far away places.

Someone just end it all, please.

* * *

My vision is gone now, I can't see anything but darkness.

It won't be long, I can feel it. I'm dying, and I have never wanted anything more in my entire life.

My heart beat echoes in my ears. It keeps getting slower…

slower….

slower…..

Then, it stops.

And everything is gone.

 **I don't know what compelled me to right this. It came to me one morning and I couldn't bear not to put it down. It's darker than anything I have ever written before, but I hope it was enjoyable all the same.**


End file.
